The Lost Elberon Hall - 385-386 Central Park West

photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

In an article titled, "The Apartment House Work of Central Park," on February 15, 1902, the Record & Guide described Leon A. Liebeskind as one of New York City's most successful builders of apartment houses.  The article noted he "has now been in the building business in New York City for some fifteen or sixteen years, during which he has erected many apartments."

A year after that article, on April 15, 1903, the journal reported that Liebeskind had purchased a 55-foot wide plot on Central Park West between 98th and 99th Streets.  The article said he, "will erect an apartment house on the site."

Completed in 1904, the Renaissance Revival style structure featured a handsome portico with paired, Scamozzi columns.  Above the two-story, rusticated stone base were seven stories of beige brick.  Intermittent stone bays within the central section were flanked by gently rounded bays.  A tiara-like stone balustrade crowned the cornice.

There were two eight-room apartments with two baths per floor--north and south.  "Nothing will be found wanting which would tend to make these the most desirable housekeeping apartments in the city," said an advertisement in The New York Times on August 28, 1904.  Each had a "butler's pantry and reception and private halls which open upon every room."  Because Elberon Hall was intended for affluent tenants, the apartments included an "extra large fireproof jewelry safe" and a silver safe.  "There is liveried hall and elevator attendance day and night," said the ad, and "long distance telephone in every apartment, etc."

Tenants of Elberon Hall would enjoy a unique amenity.  "A special feature of the bathrooms is the Russian and Turkish Bath attachments, something heretofore unknown in private apartments," explained an advertisement.

The New York Times, August 28, 1904 (copyright expired)

Although the sons of Elberon Hall families certainly did not need to resort to crime for money, two brought unwanted publicity when they were arrested in separate incidents.  The first was 19-year-old Robert Turner.  On September 6, 1907, The New York Times reported, "In the arrest of three youths yesterday afternoon, detectives of the Central Office believe they have caught the burglars that for ten days have been ransacking flats in the Harlem district."  Turner and his cohorts were seen breaking into an apartment on West 112th Street.  Two were captured as they carried bundles out of the building.  Turner rushed back to the apartment.  The New York Times reported, "lowering himself through the window, [he] dropped to the bottom of the air shaft.  His cry of pain told the waiting policemen where to look for him."  The teen had badly fractured his right leg.  The three were charged with attempted burglary.

Ferdinand Herrman was the son of Morris Herrman, who the New York Press said was, "reported to be a millionaire and is president of the Herrman Realty Company."  Like Robert Turner, he broke into Harlem apartments.  On May 17, 1909, the 22-year-old was charged with grand larceny for having burglarized the St. Nicholas Avenue apartment of Charlotte Harris 13 days earlier.  He and his female accomplice were tracked down after they pawned some of the $1,300 worth of jewelry and silverware.

Young Herrman tried desperately to avoid publicity.  When arrested he said his name was Ferdinand Ladau.  At Police Headquarters, he gave his address as 437 Central Park West, and in court as 473 Central Park West.  Morris Herrman provided the $1,500 bail (equal to nearly $52,000 in 2024).  Shortly afterward, Mrs. Harris dropped her complaint, prompting strong suspicions that Herrman had paid her handsomely.

Nevertheless, the Herrman family stuck to the story that the accused burglar was the concocted Ladau, not Herrman.  A reporter from the New York Press who went to the Herrman's Elberon Hall apartment was told that Morris Herrman "had gone out of town."  A "young man who said he is a brother of Ferdinand Herrman, explained that Ferdinand Herrman had been absent in the West for six months," said the article.  As to the Ferdinand Ladau case, the young man said "he could not discuss that nor explain his father's interest in the case." 

As the reporter left, he stopped a hallboy and asked if Ferdinand Herrman was home.  "No," he answered, "he went out about ten minutes before you came.  He told me that if any one asked for him to say he did not live here."

Joseph M. Kahn and his family were victims of a brazen burglar on January 28, 1912.  Six burglaries had recently been committed in the section of Central Park West between 95th and 100th Street.  Police surmised the thief used a rope and iron hook to access the apartments--tossing the hook up to the fire escape, then pulling himself up.

That evening, between 7:00 and 8:00, Kahn and his wife were entertaining Kahn's brother-in-law, David Roth, and two nieces of Mrs. Kahn, "Miss Largman and Miss Denitz," in the drawing room.  The Kahns' small son was also there.  While they chatted, the burglar was at work.  The New York Times reported, 

...after reaching the fire escape [he] entered the window of the bathroom, which was not locked, and took most of his loot from two bedrooms...All told he got away with about $1,500 worth of things, among them a pony coat, a silver mesh bag, a set of red fox furs, a polo coat, a handbag containing clothing worth $150, another set of furs, a pocketbook in which was $50, a gold and ruby and a gold and emerald bracelet, several chains, and rings and several gowns.

Living here at the time were Frank C. Van der Veer and his wife.  The couple had two adult sons, Thomas C., who was an attorney, and Willard, an actor.  Thomas, who lived elsewhere, died at the age of 42 on May 7, 1913.  Willard, who was an actor, lived here with his parents.  Born in 1894, he made his stage debut in The Bad Samaritan at the age of 10.  He had appeared with stars of the day--John Griffith in Richard III, with Mabel Taliaferro in Polly of the Circus and in The Sign of the Four, and with Ben Greet in Macbeth, for instance.

As motion pictures developed, Willard Van der Veer switched course, first becoming a cameraman with studios like Vitagraph and Edison.  He remained in the Elberon Hall apartment as late as 1918.  Later, he would accompany Admiral Richard E. Byrd's expeditions to the Artic and Antarctic, earning an Academy Award for his cinematography of polar scenes released in a Paramount documentary in 1930.  (Interestingly, his son, Frank, would also win an Academy Award for his special effects work in the 1976 King Kong.  Frank Van der Veer also did special effects for hit films like The Towering Inferno, the 1977 Star Wars, and Clash of the Titans in 1981.)

Another early tenant was Brigadier General James Nicholls Allison.  Born on September 4, 1848 in Catlettsburg, Kentucky, he had served in the Civil War from 1863 to 1865.  He was active until his retirement from the U.S. Army in 1912.

Elberon Hall was well known as a luxury building at the time.  In 1913, an eight-room apartment with two baths rented for $1,600 per year--about $4,250 a month in 2024 terms.

The building was owned by Herman Auerbach, who lived in the northern apartment on the seventh floor with his wife, Claire, and their three children, Beatrice, Daisy and Lester.  Herman was the head of the Auerbach Realty Company.  

On February 1, 1915, the New-York Tribune said the 49-year-old had "accumulated a fortune in the candy business, in which he had been associated with his father and brother."  He had withdrawn from the family firm a little over five years earlier to establish his real estate firm.  Now, said the newspaper, "He lost that fortune speculating in real estate."

The Auerbach children had been reared in privilege.  Both daughters "intended to go to college," according to the article.  As Auerbach's financial condition worsened, he first mortgaged Elberon Hall, then sold it.  Secretly, Daisy and Beatrice schemed to take stenography courses to help out.  Despite their parents' insistence that they give up their business studies, they continued and eventually got jobs.  Auerbach refused to allow Lester to drop out of De Witt Clinton High School to follow his sisters' lead.  

On February 1, 1915, The New York Times reported that a nephew of Herman Auerbach had arrived at Elberon Hall at 9:00 the previous morning to take Beatrice skating.  The telephone operator rang the apartment and the maid, Lattie Schliep, said none of the family was up yet. 

"Then call Lester," said the nephew.  Lester, who was 14, came to the phone, took the message, and told his cousin to call back at about noon.  He then decided to wake Beatrice and tell her of the invitation.

He walked down the corridor to the sleeping room of Beatrice, 18 years old, and her sister Daisy, 16, knocked at the door, and receiving no response, opened the door and looked in.  The two girls lay motionless, with their pillows stained crimson.

Lester shut the door and ran down the hall to his parents' room.  When no one answered his "frantic pounding," he went in.  "He saw his father and mother lying dead, with bullet wounds in their heads."  

Herman Auerbach had purchased a rifle and a silencer a few days earlier.  He had shot his 34-year-old wife and two daughters in the back of the head while they slept, then turned the rifle on himself.  As Lester ran to tell the maid, he noticed a note on his bedroom door from his father.  "When you wake up," it said, "telephone to Uncles Joe and Leo and grandpa."

The New-York Tribune traced Auerbach's movements.  February 1, 1915 (copyright expired)

The Evening World said the coroner felt the triple murder and suicide "was due to temporary insanity, brought on by imminent poverty after a life of prosperity that at one time put him in the millionaire class."  It was surmised that Lester was spared because "he was a boy" and could fend for himself.

Colonel John W. Schultz de Brun and his family lived here at the time of the tragedy.  Son Harry C. W. Schultz de Brun was exceptionally well-educated.  He was a graduate of New York University, Fordham University and the University at Bordeaux, France.  When American entered World War I, he joined the Army, serving as a surgeon with the allied forces and with the American Expeditionary Forces.  

Harry C. W. Schultz de Brun would eventually be promoted to the rank of major.  Amid the horrors of war, he found love.  Mathilde Dolmetsch, who lived on West End Avenue, was in Europe as an ambulance driver for the National League for Women's Service.  At the end of the war, on October 11, 1919, her parents announced her engagement to Schultz de Brun.  The couple was married in the Collegiate Reformed Church on June 12, 1920.

Elberon Hall was sold to an investor on April 23, 1929.  It was "entirely renovated" in 1937, according to court papers later.  The sprawling apartments were divided into 3-1/2 room suites.  The renovations included bathrooms with, "tile floor, tile wainscot, plaster walls and ceiling, pedestal basin, toilet with flushometer, built-in tub with shower."

photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

By then, Elberon Hall was an anachronism.  The other turn-of-the-century apartment buildings along Central Park West had been replaced during the 1920s with high-rise Art Deco structures.  Unlike those buildings, it was not the change in fashion that doomed Elberon Hall, it was the mid-century urban renewal trend.

On April 10, 1958, the New York Post reported, "The building is in good physical condition but is to be demolished soon under the redevelopment plan."  The Urban Relocation Management, Inc. had been hired to find housing for the tenants.  A month earlier, on March 3, after 17 residents did not immediately accept the option, the elevator suddenly stopped working.  Since then, said the article, "elderly persons and mothers with small children have been forced to walk up and down."

Eventually, all the tenants were evicted and moved to new housing.  The site of Elberon Hall is now part of a vast parking lot for the resultant apartment houses, completed in 1961.